Aullwood Audubon

Day 4

Today was a very exciting day for me because we were going to Aullwood Audubon. I had heard a lot of amazing things about this nature center. I was very excited to go there. Before going there, we reflected on a question, "what is a community?" All the groups came up with very unique and interesting responses. We talked about equality in the community and how if one organism in the community is missing almost everyone would be affected. To prove this, we did an activity where we all were given a note-card of an organism in the community. Then we were asked to stand in a circle. One person was given a string roll and asked to throw it at one person who would affect them and so on. This was the end result:

The "string" activity 

Then we went to Alluwood Audubon. I really liked the whole experience of going into the woods and doing the water study. In the water study, we were at a lake looking for a invertebrate. We were also given binoculars to look closely at birds. I got to see the Indigo Bunting. It was very bright blue in color and I though it was very beautiful. We got to look and carry a turtle and a snake. It was very scary at first to get the snake but after I held it in my hand, I realized it wasn't as bad. We then went to the farm where we played with baby goats, pigs, and rabbits. They were all very cute and that was my favorite part of the day. We then had lunch and came back. We were then asked to write a meditation script. The one I wrote was: 

Imagine you standing under a tall sycamore tree. You close your eyes and try to take in all the sounds around you. The blue jay making various types of sounds, the insects flying over your head, the bees buzzing in your ears. As you look further, you see a creek. The clear water in the creek crashing gently against the glacial rocks almost sounding like the beach. Following the creek, you see a pond in which there are a bunch of fish, turtles under the low lying branches of the trees.

The boardwalk on which you are standing is wet from the rain that had recently left the whole trail wet and soft. You go on following the trail. You see a beautifully bright blue colored Indigo Bunting. Its bright wings standing out from the rest of its green environment. You also see some prairie grass, almost as tall as your knees brushing softly against your knees. You keep walking and see the sycamore tree you had originally started from.

You open your eyes and see the sun piercing through the trees. The sounds still around you. You feel equal to everything around you. As you take a deep breath, the smell of the wet dirt fills your whole body leaving you refreshed and ready for the rest of the day. 

playing with the baby goats!(: 

Cox Arboetum

Day 3

Today we continued working on a activity that we started yesterday. It was called the Hershey Kiss activity. For this activity, we had to observe a Hershey Kiss using all the 5 senses. We also went to the Cox Arboretum. We went by a bus. We were given a task to take pictures of five trees and a creature. It was a really big and awesome. I really liked all the trees and the "nature" Me and my friends took a bunch of pictures at the little waterfall. There was also a tree Tower which was very cute cause we all went up there and ate lunch. We then did Yoga in the grass. It was very warm out because the sun was out. It was really fun after Yoga when we got to go into the building with Air Conditioning. I really liked the experience of walking around and observing your surroundings.

The Hershey Kiss activity

European beech

Sycamore tree

Austrian pine 

Hoops blue spruce

Jack pine tree

Delco Park

Day 2!

My time with Rob E. Boley
Today we read an excerpt from Tom Brown's Field Guide: Nature Observation and Tracking by Tom Brown. It was about noticing the little details about nature and how we miss out on them when we don't look as closely. We had a guest speaker today, Rob Boley. He is an author who taught us about writing techniques. We played a game in which we were given a magazine page and were asked to pick three a random word and get the two words after it so we had three words in total. Then we were asked to write a Haiku by using those three words as the first words of the line. A haiku is a 3 line poem. The lines have 5-7-5 syllables respectively. The challenge in this game for me was I didn't know what to write the Haiku about since we weren't given a specific topic. The haiku I came up with was:

Arc of a rainbow

few feet above the mountains

a gift of nature

another activity that we did was similar to the one with the Haiku but we had to write a dialogue instead. We were to chose 10 words in a row (or a sentence) and create a dialogue using those words as the first words for each sentence. The dialogue I came up with was:

-An institution?

-Institution for the handicapped

-In here?

-which is the best place for it

-regular people will be coming here everyday

-withdrawal from their daily life will help them

-from their daily life?

-the life at work and school

-investing in school and work is a good thing. 

-Capital letters- NO!  

I really enjoyed writing the Haiku more than the dialogue. I thought it was really cool that you could make a haiku using any three words.

The Delco Park!(: 

To The Woods

Day 1

Today was the first day of our STEMmersion. We were introduced to the course, given the schedules, and talked about the expectations. Our teachers, Ms. McDaniel and Ms. Kancler also talked to us about the requirements and the grades of this course. We also read an excerpt from "Looking Around" in Bird by Bird: Some instructions on writing and life by Anne Lamott. We then had a class discussion about what the reading meant to us. We then introduced ourselves to the whole class. Then we were divided into two groups to do an activity. we had to get from point A to point B using 4 tiny blocks of wood. There were about 15 people per team. It was a really cool way for a team building activity. We then had a guest speaker, Scott Giesel who is a professor at the Wright State University. He talked to us about nature writing. We talked about what nature writing meant to everyone in the class. We also talked about how to start writing. Mr. Giesel gave us a few points we can ponder on to start writing, they were:
1) Observation
     -sight
     -sounds
     -smell
     -taste
     -taste

2)feelings/ideas; metaphors; personification; relationships/ connection symbolism- we have to make sense of the situation and explain it to other people so they can relate their lives to the writing.

3)Delivery: deliver it in a very specific way so people don't add their own thoughts and are actually seeing what you want them to see.

I had a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to go into the woods and experience nature.

Team building activity!(: